Curriculum Courier

Curriculum

“There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.”

– Aristotle

SuperTeacher

Submissions for the first round of Super Teacher are due by 4:00 PM on Thursday, November 1

The Coppell ISD educator recognition program called "SuperTeacher" highlights the 21st Century learning environments, learning designs, and assessments that educators are implementing all over the district to transform teaching and learning.

Members of the CISD staff have the chance to nominate educators with supporting evidence of transformation. Evidence may include, but is not limited to, photos, videos and/or written descriptions. Evidence supporting the nomination can be submitted on the form linked below. Nominations should make connections to Dimensions/Domains within the CISD Educator Evaluation Instrument as well.

Nominations will be accepted online throughout the year, and Dr. Waldrip will personally acknowledge the best of the best during a special lunch!3, 2014.

The Coppell ISD educator recognition program called "SuperTeacher" highlights the 21st Century learning environments, learning designs, and assessments that educators are implementing all over the district to transform teaching and learning.

Members of the CISD staff have the chance to nominate educators with supporting evidence of transformation. Evidence may include, but is not limited to, photos, videos and/or written descriptions. Evidence supporting the nomination can be submitted on the form linked below. Nominations should make connections to Dimensions/Domains within the CISD Educator Evaluation Instrument as well.

Nominations will be accepted online throughout the year, and Dr. Waldrip will personally acknowledge the best of the best during a special lunch!

Intervention Services: Rhonda Carr

Intervention Services – RtI

The Department of Intervention Services is offering a series of webinars on RtI. All sessions will be at Brock. Participants do not need to attend all sessions but can pick and choose the ones appropriate to their learning needs. This session on Tier 1 would be great for any educator needing solid instructional strategies which build learner competence.

The first RtI webinar with author Doug Fisher will be held on January 20 in TR 1 @ Brock from 4:00-5:15 pm

Webinar 1: High Quality Tier One Core Instruction – Building student competence requires precision teaching and not prescriptive methods for engaging students. This session focuses on the Gradual Release of Responsibility and provides participants with information about implementation of an instructional framework that ensures student success, including establishing purpose, modelling thinking, guiding instruction, productive group work, and independent learning tasks.

Mathematics: Mary Kemper

Updated Website

Mathematics information on the Coppellisd.com website has been updated. Please visit http://www.coppellisd.com/Page/499 and review the information about Parent Resources, Your Child’s Math Education, Go Math! and Think Through Math. There is also an embedded video to clarify the difference between Go Math! and Think Through Math, ways parents can support children at home and provide extra support, and why math looks different than when we were in school. The website now contains instructional videos for parents to utilize as a visual tool when helping their student with math concepts and articles from NCTM’s Family Resources. Campus Administrators, Educators, and Counselors may use these resources as speaking points when meeting with parents as well. If you are aware of any additional areas of concern that can be addressed through the pages on the Coppellisd.com website, please let me know and I will draft a response to post.

Frequently Asked Questions

Elementary Math Content Specialists have been asked to contribute questions they have been asked about Go Math! and Think Through Math to a shared google doc this week. Answers to these questions will be drafted and the resulting Frequently Asked Questions resource will be shared. If you have any (or have been asked any) questions about either of these resources, please communicate these to your Content Specialist so that they may be included.

TEA Updates

Presentations of the TEA Updates from the Texas Association of Supervisors of Mathematics meeting in October are available online. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Science & Sustainability: Linda Cook

The next Elementary Science Content Specialists and Secondary Science Department Chairs meeting will be November 13th from 4:00 – 5:00 pm at Lee Elementary. The focus of the meeting will be on the use of formative assessment and effective feedback to drive learning within the science classroom.

The Conference for the Advancement of Science Teaching (CAST) is in Dallas this year at the Anatole. This year’s theme is “CSI: Creating STEM Inquiries”. Several CISD science educators will be attending and several will be presenting. The dates are Nov. 20th and 21st .

David Noel will be proving vocabulary training based on Marzano’s Building Background Knowledge.

David will email all K-4 and 6th grade principals to set up a day to meet with your science educators during their conference or PLC time to discuss and model strategies and share science vocabulary vertically aligned by science strand.

David will be providing a ½ day vocabulary training for science educators for grades 5 and 8 from 12:30 – 3:30 pm on December 10th. The training will take place in the board room.

David will be providing a ½ day vocabulary training for science educators for grades 7 and biology on December 11th from 8:00 – 11:00 am. The training will take place in the board room.

Updated vocabulary words will be added to the Science Splash Screens by the beginning of the next semester.

Jodie Deinhammer will be providing training on the use of iPads in the middle school science classroom to transform learning, following the work of Alan November’s Who Owns the Learning?

Jodie will meet with 8th grade science teachers from 8:00 – 11:00 am on December 10th to model effective use of iPads for learning. The training will take place in the board room.

Jodie will meet with 7th grade science teachers from 12:30 – 3:30 on December 11th to model effective use of iPads for learning. The training will take place in the board room.

The new Republic Recycling outdoor dumpsters should have been delivered to all campuses by this time. If you have not received yours, please email Brad Hunt or Linda Cook. Please encourage recycling at your campus. Remember that Republic does not require sorting of recyclables. All paper, cardboard, metal, glass, and plastic recyclables may be placed in the same containers.

Advanced Academics: Deana Harrell

By Request…Another Basic 30 Hour GT Session

With all the information coming at our new hires during the first few weeks of school as well as a few terrific new hires since the beginning of school, a request has been made for me to open another GT 30 hour training. Please pass this information on to educator on your campus needing to complete the 30-hour requirement. (As a reminder that is all classroom educators at the elementary level, all core educators at the middle school level, and Pre-AP, AP, IB Prep, IB and GT educators at CHS and NTH@C.)

Once registration closes, I will send log-in instructions for the Blackboard course. *Please emphasize to your educators that they MUST register in Eduphoria as that is where we track completion!

We have the opportunity host Kevin Gant (former New Tech Network PBL Coach) in January of 2015. Kevin has agreed to spend two days with us training both campus administrators and a small team of campus educators in the PBL process. The training has been scheduled for January 23rd and 24th (please note this is a Friday and a Saturday). If you are interested in attending, please complete the google form attached. Questions? Contact Deana Harrell

*Secondary Administrators – please remind your staffs that the deadline for completing the Sexual Abuse and Child Abuse Training is Monday, December 1st. Please send me (Deana Harrell) the completed rosters of those who have been trained on your campus. Please designate a place in the office or records room for the certificates to be stored.

Here is another option for educators, who couldn’t get through Darkness to Light. This programs was developed by the Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center, it is TEA compliant, and not as intense as Darkness to Light.

Please provide your input as to a couple of windows that work best for your campus.

STAAR A AND STAAR ALT 2

TEA sent out a letter indicating the need to ensure eligibility measures are strictly followed when determining if a learner will take STAAR A or STAAR ALT 2. The letter is linked here. If the link does not work, you may access the letter at http://tea.texas.gov/index4.aspx?id=25769818563.

Learners requiring a higher degree of accommodation than what is allowable on the general STAAR must be students:

with identified disabilities who are receiving special education services; or

identified with dyslexia or a related disorder (as defined in Texas Education Code §38.003) who are receiving Section 504 services.

For STAAR ALT 2, a student must meet ALL of the following participation requirements:

Documentation is needed, along with any forms required by TEA. Training was provided over the new tests and requirements. If you have additional staff you wish to have trained, there will be one last training on December 2, 2014, in the Admin Boardroom from 4:00 PM-6:00 PM.

UPCOMING ASSESSMENT DATES FOR NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

11/18: CBE and Grade Level and Course Acceleration (after school) at CMS West

12/1-12/5: STAAR EOC Window for Algebra I, U.S. History, Biology

12/1: STAAR EOC English I

12/3: STAAR EOC English II

12/5: Last day for STAAR EOC English I and II makeups

Social Studies: Jon-Eric Ziaer

If you didn’t have a chance yet, please check out the hash tag #cisdsocialstudies on Twitter to see the many tremendous activities around CISD in observance of Veterans Day!

The Social Studies Instructional Materials Committee will be attending the Region 10 Book Fair on Wed.-Nov. 19th in Richardson. We have representatives for K-12 and look forward to beginning this process. I will be sending out more information to all committee members on Wed.-Nov. 12.

Career and Technical Education (CTE)

The CNA (Certified Nursing Assistant) program at CHS recently went through State Audit and was awarded a 2 year accreditation to continue serving as a Regional Testing Center.